Groundhog Dreams

I ran my van to town yesterday and ran some errands that only a big vehicle can do before I turned it over to the car guy last night.  Garbage run, some groceries, etc.  Maddy met me and we transferred the groceries to her car and we dropped off the van.  She had the "girls" with her!! :)

old photo of them but it shows their true nature! :)

Hopefully we'll find out this morning what it will take to make my van quit leaking power steering fluid like a sieve...  and hopefully it will be a cheap fix. and hopefully I can continue to drive it without building up my upper body strength unintentionally.

 When I got home from the car swap, I'd found that Ryan had already chopped up a bunch of veggies for taco fixings and straightened up the dining room!  NICE...

As he would say, "I am the backbone of this household!"

All the kids were at the house last night for tacos!  I'm loving our time together.  Maddy & Matthew brought taquitos to round out the meal... yum...  and since when is Leon liking green peppers!!  I think we found his veggie of choice!  Give that kid a whole bowl of that!  or just put it on his tacos...

Meri and her bf Ryan went through one of her photo albums before leaving.  Since her Ryan had gone to the same elementary school, he recognized a lot of her friends from her 6th and 7th birthday parties.  That and the tub of Robb's photos have inspired me for a future project of scrapbooking again.  Maybe next year or decade.  The wedding dresses, garage and other household projects need to happen first.

As does my work day.  

Have a wonderful Wednesday and don't let a rodent tell you how to live your life!

I'll dress the way I want regardless that it's 3 degrees as the high all day...

Thanks Covid...

 Several months ago, Robb and I planned a cruise for THIS very weekend!  It had to be cancelled...

Thanks Covid...

Today is the day we would have winging south to Florida.  Sigh.  Little did we know that Covid would still be a thing...  and it's probably a good thing or I would have spent my 3 work days off (Thursday, Friday and Monday) anxious about getting calls from my boss and clients about a big programming project that I'm in the middle of.  Everyone is anxious, why not make Val on her vacation?...

Oh and it's an ice storm today so the flight probably would have been delayed anyway.

So as it stands, I'm taking tomorrow afternoon off and Robb and I will stay at a wonderful hotel pretending that it's a cruise ship.  Embassy Suites are awesome and kind of give you that feel anyway.

Our spacious cabin overlooks the promenade deck.

It's only for a couple nights, but I'm looking forward to getting away!!!

No dishes, no laundry, just Robb and me.

Then back to the same old same old.

And that crazy ground hog predicted 6 more weeks of winter.

It could have been a better prediction...  Like only a month and a half til spring.

Thanks Covid...

Stupid Groundhog

Six more weeks of winter??!?!!  Darn.  I was just hoping for a month and a half til spring.

And you know what's in 6 weeks?  March 21st.  The official first day of spring.

That rodent doesn't know what he's gallavantin' on about.

Colds have run through our house.  Most of us are over the worst of it by now, but Meri has had a delayed reaction to it and it's hit her hard today.  So hard that her jazz band director told her to sit in the corner and just listen this morning...  I let her come home for a couple hours to nap.  She's making herself some chicken noodle soup at 8:50am to help her sleep...  

Leon is here for the weekend!!! WOOHOO!  We never get him when we don't have to work!  Well, hardly ever since school started.It'll be great.  

We'll make play dough and donuts.  Build snowmen and Lego towers.  

Watch all of Babe *again* and some other unfortunate events!  Color and pick up toys.  Clean his room and bathroom.  Teach him how to scrub spots on the carpet and mop.  And how to sit quietly and watch me sew.  *He can hand me pieces.*

And all that will be in the first hour on Saturday.

And I'm hoping to get some fabric ordered this weekend with this type of thing printed all over it.  Someone has requested PJ pants made with this type of fabric.  and with his b'day coming up, you BETCHA!!!

It's been a rough week in other things, but joking aside, it's looking to be a good weekend.

I hope yours is good too!

Ned? Ned Ryerson?!

Well, it's Groundhog day folks! The day when the world looks to a squirrel-like creature to predict the weather... As Robb and I watched the news this morning, the little monster predicted 6 more weeks of winter. Robb says that when the groundhog predicts that, they bite his head off. That didn't happen. I'm disappointed.

OFF WITH HIS HEAD!

Meri and I watched a little of the movie Groundhog's Day with Bill Murray this morning before getting going for the day. I love that movie! She hadn't seen it before. I love how I can relive a bunch of movies of my past with fresh eyes when watching with her. The older two have seen most of my favorites already, so fresh meat!

We had some excitement last night. Tiffany went into labor and Ryan took her to the hospital. They came home at 2am. Seems to me, I did that too on New Years Eve 12 years ago... My doctor wasn't willing to come in to work from her NYE party and after the monitors told the nurses it was all false, they sent me home. dang. I wanted a New Years baby! It was almost a full week before she was born.
My friends house down the street finally sold!!! Yay! But BOO! I was kind of hoping they'd have to move back from Oklahoma if it didn't sell... Oh well. It's a closure of sorts. I haven't seen the new people yet, just lights in the living room and the for sale sign is down now. Got to get a loaf of bread ready to pounce on them as soon as they show themselves...

Looking forward to getting a couple sewing projects completed tonight and out the door tomorrow in the mail. I've been lousy about saying, Oh yeah - that'll get done... It's been 1.5 months now... And always something else that needs to get done first.

Well... Back to work. Looks like it will be an interesting day! There's a baby that needs to be born! Not necessarily today, but within 3 weeks for sure...

Wednesday Randoms

Taekwondo was cancelled due to the weather, so I worked on the baptism gown last night for a couple hours. Went fast and I got a lot done. Did some hand stitching after wards and stitched in the bodice lining and connected one side of the lace at a seam. I'm just glad the wedding gown that I'm doing this with means nothing to me nor my sister! If I'd done this with her own wedding gown, I'd be so nervous and really mess up...I still plan to put some elastic and lace around the wrists and then scavenge some pearl trim off the wedding dress bodice to put at the waist of the baby dress. Not sure on that yet. Just toying with the ideas... It's like making doll clothes! I sent my sister a pic of it so far and she likes it!

*********

Did I tell you about Meri and my fabric painting class? On Sunday afternoon, we dressed up in grubbies and met up with about 15 other women to learn how to do fabric painting. I brought along some fabric paints, brushes, some tea towels, napkins and sample fabric. Learned a lot! And can't wait to decorate some more.

Meri went to town with the instructors stencils and I spent the last 45 minutes of the class cleaning stencils... It was a 3 hour class. Someday I'll get some pics of the projects we practiced with.

*********

Ran the snow blower this morning for just the bare minimum... There are drifts all around every car and they're deep... Since I needed to get to work soon, I just did enough to get Robb's car out, the sidewalks and a path to the house. There is a huge drift behind a couple cars, but the wind is still blowing good and strong. I should probably wait until it stops blowing just a little...

***********

No school today! The kids were actually disappointed. They're realizing that this means school won't let out for summer when they thought it might. Meri is doing a massive reorganization of her room and Maddy... well, I haven't seen her yet today.

***********

And good old Punxsutawney Phil!... Who would think that a tiny little disease ridden rodent would give snow bound Iowa a wee bit of hope in the middle of a blizzard?...

Punxsutawney diner...

That little Punxsutawney Phil got a bribe this year. From who tho, I'm not sure yet...

So 6 more weeks of winter, is it? And what is the alternative if he doesn't see his all knowing shadow? Only a month and a half until Spring?

Hmmm... I'm beginning to smell a racket...
By the way... just how long do groundhogs live? Is this the same little Phil from 1986? I'm wondering if this is the same situation as the making of the movie Babe? The little baby pig kept growing too fast, so there were about 5 or 6 little pigs playing the part...

There were lots of barbecues during the Babe movie making.. hmmm.. yum!

Has anyone tried groundhog burgers?